


Like Real People Do

by NalatteIceCream



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Cheek marks are mentioned, Dis cute if I do say so myself, Dw I hate them too but for the PLOT for the CONTENT, Keith isn't a broody bitch just a sad little shit suck it up, Lance discusses his feelings(TM), M/M, Post-Canon, They're in their garrison outfits aaayyeee fuck it up Kenneth fuck it uppp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-15 06:08:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20861489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NalatteIceCream/pseuds/NalatteIceCream
Summary: After all is said and done, and the war is over, and the planet is saved, and Lance isn't dead, Keith asks him to walk with him through the Garrison for bonding moment part two.Let's hope Lance doesn't "forget" this one.~~~For @leggylance on tumblr because she's an intellectual and I'm an impulsive little bastard.





	Like Real People Do

* * *

“You look good.”  
  
“Thanks,” Keith snorts, shrugging into his jacket; his new Garrison jacket to be exact, with the red sleeves and the gold all over and… yeah, maybe he misses his other jacket, but he can’t lie— he does look good in this one. Lance is wearing the same thing, but it’s blue, and therefore infinitely better, but he’s pretty sure that’s just because Lance is in it, and Lance’s color is blue, which makes it look even _ better _ on him. A vicious cycle, one that’s currently making Keith’s emotions go haywire, but he shoves it down deep when Lance grins at him. “You too. Pants look nice; mines feels like they’re about to take my legs off.”  
  
“Don’t be fooled by the way my ass looks, I also feel like my legs are getting suffocated,” Lance laughs, running his fingers through his hair. “C’mon, we’re gonna be late for that fancy event thingie Iverson is having.”  
  
“Iverson is holding it?” Keith asks in surprise, slipping his hands into his pockets as he follows Lance out of the bathroom. “Surprising, I’d thought that the most he’d do was ‘apologize’ and then ‘congratulate’ us and then go die in his quarters.”  
  
“Uh uh, apologize to _ me _ ," Lance snorts. "He _ adored _ your ass, dropout. I want my apology.”  
  
“Is that why you’re going?” Keith asks, eyebrows raised in amusement, a small smile on his face. Lance swallows. 

“No. Shiro said we have to.” 

Keith stops walking. _ ”Do _ we have to?”

When Lance doesn’t respond in favor of staring at him like a deer in headlights, Keith jerks his head towards one of the halls to their right. “C’mon, let’s walk for a bit. It’s not like anyone will miss us, anyways.”  
  
“Except for the people whose lives we literally saved.” Lance points out. Keith rolls his eyes.  
  
“We already did the whole _ yes we saved your life _ thing didn’t we? I’d say we deserve some downtime.”  
  
Lance snorts. “Wow, Keith the Mulletman saying he wants downtime? Maybe we didn’t save the planet, maybe we’re in an alternate universe.” The look he gets sobers him up. “Too soon, not funny, message received.” 

Keith shakes his head and starts walking down the hall with a grin on his face that Lance cannot see. After a few seconds, he hears rapid footsteps following after him, and he has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from splitting his face open. “Ready to get glared at by a man with a floating robot arm for the rest of the day?”  
  
“I’ve had worse,” Lance hums. “If I can handle getting my back blown out by some insane bomb, I can handle a few angry glares from your brother.”  
  
“Did you seriously just— God, _ Lance _ .”  
  
The boy laughs, and the bright blue marks on his cheeks seem to glow a little brighter for a split second, but Keith doesn’t pay it any mind. “Okay, bad choice of words, _ but _ , the point still stands. I’ll live.” He nods towards the end of the hall. “You know where you’re going?”  
  
Keith rolls his eyes. As if he doesn’t know his way through this building like the back of his hand. oh yeah, _ vaguely _ . Why, you don’t?” He asks, bumping their shoulders together—or more like, his shoulder against Lance’ s forearm, but it’s not _ that _ far off from his shoulder, so it counts. “We _ did _ go to the same school for what? Three years?”  
  
“Four,” Lance corrects. “Four years. I’m surprised you’d even know that, mister bigshot, I was convinced you didn’t know who I _ was _ back then.”  
  
“Of course I knew who you were,” Keith says. Too softly, too sincere, too painstakingly heartfelt. He shakes his head and snorts. “Everyone knew the Cuban kid who sang in the showers. Who _ still _sings in the showers."

Lance’s face goes hot, and again, the marks under his eyes flash. “You heard about that. Of course. Of _ course _.”

“Oh yeah,” Keith hums. “Punched a kid in the face over it, too. He said you can’t sing. We had differing opinions.” 

Lance looks shocked for a moment, before he’s laughing. “That was _ you _ ? Was wondering why Wyatt avoided me for so long.”  
  
They share a small laugh, only to go silent again as they continue walking down the hall. It’s still that almost clinical yellow that you see in abandoned hospitals in horror movies, still as clean and boringly empty as they left it. Keith counts the number of doors they need to pass before reaching the end of the hallway. Eleven on both sides. Twenty-two doors. Seventy-four footsteps. He tries to come up with something to say to fill the silence, before realizing that he doesn’t really need to. He’s always liked this, the little silences they managed to share, even if they only lasted two seconds before Lance was mouthing off at him for something dumb like stealing his lion. 

Which sounds really bad out of context, now that he thinks about it. 

He looks over to see Lance is eyeing all the doors just like he’d been, though it’s for a different reason; he’s thinking about who’d lived in those rooms, their names, their faces, wondering if they’re still there or if they’re… not. Trying not to think about what it’d feel like if he just. Reached out and held Keith’s hand.

He decides to imagine that they’re still there. He decides he doesn’t want to hold Keith’s hand. Just before he can start goddamn _ sweating _over it, Keith speaks up. 

“I hated flying here.” 

Lance blinks in surprise. “Really?”  
  
Keith snorts, nodding to himself. “Yeah, really. I mean, I liked showing off, you know, proving that I could _ do _it, that I was competent enough to figure it out, but I’ve been doing that my whole life. Proving that I can do things and not mess it up. Here, flying was just… Another thing for me to not mess up. I had to fly a certain way, I couldn’t fly how I wanted to, and I hated it.” 

He furrows his brows, clearly trying to figure out what he wants to say next. “And it was lonely. No one wanted to talk to me, the weird Asian orphan kid who just… showed up at the top. No one cared about anything except for the fact that I could fly, not even the teachers. Hunk did, though, but… I always pushed him away for some reason? I don’t know. I was fourteen.” He pauses. “You loved to talk about me though.” 

Lance redden at that, runs at the back of his neck as if it'll somehow stop his face from getting any redder. "Maybe." 

Keith turns to look at him, a small smirk on his lips. "Maybe?" 

Lance… doesn't have an answer for that. Thankfully, Keith doesn't preds him for one. They continue to walk in silence, just enjoying each others company, until he finds his voice again. "Yanno, everyone thought I hated you." 

"You were pretty convincing," Keith snorts. "From what _ I _heard, you had some sort of personal vendetta against me." 

"Personal _ vendetta? _ No. More like a need to both impress you and surpass everything you do so I didn't get bullied by my teacher so much," Lance admits. "I know I talked a lot of shit, but I looked up to you. Even though you were shorter than me. You were all I wanted to _ be _ while we were here. Not literally, but. In a weird way, you inspired me to do better. You were like, my _ idol _or whatever, and— honestly? You're just a dude who can fly." 

"Ouch. Way to make a man feel good about himself," Keith teases, shoving Lance in the shoulder. Lance shoves him back with a laugh and rolls his eyes. 

"Sorry to hurt your precious fourteen year old feelings but…it's true. I think that's part of why I was such an asshat with you. Because I got to see, _ really _see that you weren't what the Garrison made you out to be, you were just. A teenager who wanted to figure himself out, that… got roped into flying giant cats in space. You were just like me." 

He gestures to Keith's cheek. "Minus the being half purple cat and all."

Keith rolls his eyes with a huff, but he smiles anyways. "Nice to know you don't hate my guts." 

"You've known for a long time that I don't hate your guts."

"Yeah but now I gotta verbal confirmation. Heard it with my own ears. There's no _ denial _going on or anything." 

"I— are you referring back to—"

"Yep." 

_ "Keeeeeeiiith." _

They spend the next twenty minutes or so wandering around and just… _ talking. _ Catching up. Keith tells Lance about his work with the BOM, Lance tells Keith about the time he died— "You _ died???" _ "Yeah yeah, it was a whole thing." — Keith tells Lance about the trials he'd had to go through to get _ in _ to the BOM— "They _ beat _ you _ up??" _ "Well, _ yeah???" — _ and they share a mutual annoyance with the lack of orange juice and scrambled eggs on any of the alien planets (although Keith found a pretty solid replacement on the planet Yezmen. It was green. He didn't _ hate _ it). They talk about weird shit that happened, jokes they discovered, debate over who's clearly more _ seasoned _ — more like Lance argues he's more seasoned just for fun and Keith, out of spite and the urge to get Lance heated, blatantly disagrees — and quietly remind each other that they don't have to use _ present _ tense when talking about the war, because it's _ over _. it felt like there wasn't enough time for any of that on both ends, but now that there's no war to fight? Well, they have all the time in the world, don't they? 

Eventually, they reach one of the training halls; a long, wide hallway with multiple flight and combat simulators lined up and ready to be activated. Of course, Lance lights up, an idea already forming in his head. "Hey, Keith?"  
  
“Yeah?” Keith asks him, even though he already knows what Lance is about to ask him. “What’s up?” 

Lance jerks his head towards one of the flight simulators. “Wanna go for a test run?”  
  
This time, Keith breaks out into a grin. “I don’t see a crew anywhere, Cargo Pilot McClain.”

“Okay, now we’re _ definitely _ doing this,” Lance says, brushing past Keith to the entrance to the closest simulator. Keith snorts and disappears into the one next to it, blinking as the dark room flickers to life upon his entry. He drops into the pilot’s seat, grips the controls, and for a split second he feels thirteen again, feels that smug sort of satisfaction of knowing what he’s doing a _ little _better than any and everyone else there. A hologram screen appears in front of him, asking if he’d like to start the simulator, and letting him know that another simulator machine is trying to link with his. He grins and swipes to accept the holographic FaceTime. 

“Wrow, and he _ answers. _Shocking. Couldn’t go two minutes without seeing my face?” 

"Couldn't bear it, the pain was too much," Keith drawls, wriggling around in his seat. "Ready to get your ass kicked, Tailor?" 

Lance grins so goddamn wide he has to bite his cheek to keep from looking like a _ total _idiot. "Do your worst, Mullet." 

… Lance wins. 

By a landslide. 

Keith blames it on working with the blade for too long. Blames him pretty much spinning out of control on the fact he's been using alien controls for the past what? Two? Three? _Ten _earth years? So Lance decides to let him have his complaints, and they go a second time.

He wins.

_ Again _. 

Keith doesn't even try to defend himself this time. 

"Okay, you got me," He sighs out, stepping back into the hallway. "That was a good one."

"I got you?" Lance echos, grinning from the doorway to his flight simulator. 

Keith shrugs, throwing his hands up in the air. "Yeah, you got me." 

Lance softens a little. Leans against the wall. "I got you."

This time, its Keith who doesn't have a response. So, instead of responding right then and risking spontaneous combustion, he rolls his eyes, turns on his heels and starts walking away again. "Shut up." 

Lance follows, close on his heels with his hands in his pockets before he starts smelling… food. Good food. _ Real _food. "Keith." 

"Yeah?" 

"You… you smell that?" 

Keith stops walking. "...Yeah." He sniffs the air. It smells like… like _ meat. _ Meat with _ sauce. _ And _ greens. _ "Yeah, I smell that." 

Lance's stomach starts to rumble. "Oh my God. What _ is _that?"

Keith's ear twitches in the slightest, and he turns his head to his right, where a small, lanky blond is pushing a cart of food towards the media room, where everyone else is. "He looks like he's struggling," he says almost absentmindedly. 

Lance nods. "Yeah. Think he could use some help?" 

"Yeah sure, guys gotta eat in there and all." 

The food never makes it to the media room. 

Even though the boy literally got food taken from him, the most he does is ask them to not take it. Not like he's gonna demand that two of the reasons he's still alive and breathing, stops and turns the cart back around. Those same two reasons leave him a plate of food, as well as leaving plates at the doors of any obviously occupied rooms before finally being left with two. 

It's just as Keith had expected— or…close. Barbecued chicken with rice and beans, and collard greens. Lance snickers when he sees it. "This is the saddest plate of dirty rice I've ever seen." 

Keith furrows his brows in confusion. "Dirty rice?" 

"Yeah? Oh, right— _ you guys _call it rice and beans. But it's really called dirty rice, when you make it right." Lance gestures to his plate. "This? This is just rice and beans." 

"Hm," Keith offers, a sort of I'm-not-listening-but-I-understand gesture that Lance picks up on immediately. "So does this mean you're not eating it?" 

"Oh damn _ right _ I'm eating this, I haven't eaten proper food in _ years! _ I'm going _ in." _Keith makes a move like he's about to start eating, but Lance gently nudges his shoulder first.

"I know a good spot to eat this. C'mon, follow me." 

Keith raises a skeptical eyebrow. "Where are we goin'?" 

"Rooftop. Days almost over, right?" Lance offers a lopsided grin, jerking his head to his right. "Why eat under weird hospital lights when we can eat  _ outside?  _ It'll make eating more fun, I promise." 

"I didn't know that eating was supposed to be fun." 

"That's 'cause you don't know too many fun experts. Don't worry, buddy; as your local funologist, I'm telling you, this'll be great." 

_ "Funologist?" _

_ "Yes,  _ Keith, a  _ funologist _ , now come on before we  _ miss  _ the damn thing." He slugs him in the shoulder with his free hand before he goes running down the hallway, Keith close on his heels, neither of them paying much attention to the beans and rice they're spilling on the floor as they go.

"This chicken is really good." 

"Who are  _ you _ telling?" Keith asks around a mouthful of food, "The last time I had anything even remotely  _ similar  _ to this, it was dark purple and had  _ scales."  _

_ _ "Keith… what the hell were  _ you  _ eating?" 

Keith takes a moment to swallow his food before he responds, "Whatever I could find, honestly. There were a lotta animals on that space whale."

"Wait—  _ space whale?"  _

So Keith tells Lance about the space whale, and Lance listens in awe as he describes where he essentially hid out for two years— for Keith, at least--and how he didn't. You know. Die. When he's done explaining, Lance simply nods, very slowly; slow enough for Keith to understand that "You don't understand anything I just said, did you?" 

"No, I did, I just need to wrap my head around… Forty percent of everything you just said," Lance assures, grinning as he shovels more rice and beans into his mouth. "And the other 60% need to get shipped to long term memory and all that stuff, you know how learning works."

"You plan on educating the masses about space whales?" Keith snorts, biting into his chicken again only for his teeth to meet bone. He lets out a disappointed huff, only to lean back in surprise when Lance drops another piece of chicken on his plate. "Thanks." 

"I plan to educate  _ children  _ on space whales. Children." Lance scoops some of his greens onto his fork. "And you're welcome, I'm watching my weight and all, can't get caught slipping or anything." 

Keith knows its bullshit, but he doesn't comment. Instead, he rests his head against Lance's shoulder, watching the sun set in front of them. "... You remember the last time we sat in front of a sunset?"

"Hm? Yeah. I was wearing buckets and sausages. Not one of my proudest moments." 

Keith snorts. "Yeah. It looked good on you." 

"Oh, my dear boy, haven't you heard? I can make  _ anything  _ look good on me," Lance teases, but his voice is too soft. Too sincere. 

Keith shakes his head a little, swallowing that little flicker of hope down. "Whatever, man." He sighs through his nose, shifts a little so his neck doesn't hurt so much, but not enough where he has to lift his head off of Lance's shoulder. "... You know? This is the most fun I've had in literal years." 

"Well, in your defense, you didn't have _me_ for about what? Two, three of those?" Lance teases, and though Keith cant see him, he knows he's making that  _ stupid  _ face he does when he knows he's right. The one with the almost-smirk and the crinkly eyes. 

"That's true. I didn't have you. I didn't have anyone." He goes quiet. "I didn't have anyone, really. For a long time. And then I found you—  _ guys.  _ I found you guys, and. I left? I don't know why I left, it feels so stupid thinking back on it." 

"But you're back now." 

Keith cant help but smile. "... Yeah. I'm back. Unless some sick hoverbike gang comes to get me. Then I'm definitely leaving." 

Lance barks out a laugh, snorting as he talks, "Keith has jokes now, I see. Looks like senses of humor floats around in space just like trash, huh?"

"Yeah yeah yeah. I kinda like it, I think I'll keep it." Keith smiles, oddly proud of himself for making Lance laugh, and he looks back down at his lap, and then Lance's, and then Lance's hand. And he wonders if it'd be so  _ so  _ bad if he were to hold it. 

"... You know. The last time we watched a sunset? And you were in buckets and sausages? You remember what I said, right?" 

The response is immediate. "Every word." 

He takes a breath. "You know I meant it, right?" 

"'Course I did." A pause. "Your eyes got all soft on me." 

Oh.

_ ...Oh?  _ "... What do you mean?" 

"Your eyes do this…  _ thing  _ when you're being sincere. Your eyes get all… I dunno.  _ Soft.  _ I just knew you were telling me the truth." Lance hums a little, sighing through his nose. "S'how I know when you're lying. No matter how upset you get, your eyes stay the same." 

Keith furrows his brows at that. "Didn't know you paid that much attention to my face, " He snorts, attempting to lighten the conversation, because Lance is talking too soft again, and he's not sure if he can handle it. Not right now. 

Lance nods. "Hey, you hear things from me no one else really hears and I see the shit you think that I can't. That works, right?" 

"We make a pretty team, I think," Keith murmurs, sitting up to properly watch the sun start to sink into the horizon. "Right?" 

"Right," Lance murmurs. "We're a pretty good team. Keith?" 

"Yeah?" 

"... Thanks for not letting me go to that meeting." 

Keith can't help but laugh. "Meetings are wa— mmh!" He cries in surprise, eyes growing wide as Lance kisses him.

As Lance. Kisses. Him. 

His eyes are still wide open when he pulls away. Some would say he never blinked again. 

"Keith?" 

Some would be horribly wrong. "Wh?" 

Lance frowns a little, tilts his head slightly to the left in concern. "I'm sorry, should I not have—"

"No no! No, you definitely should have! I mean, you could have— I mean you  _ did  _ but-Uuuu _ uuuugh."  _ Keith groans and rubs at his face, and before Lance can start outright  _ laughing  _ at him, he grabs the front of his jacket, balls it up in his hands, and pulls him into another kiss. Its awkward, and their teeth clack together—  _ twice—  _ and Keith is pretty sure this is one of the  _ last  _ meals you wanna eat before kissing somebody— he wouldn't really know, he's not an expert at this shit— but it's perfect. In it's own little "we've got time to  _ make  _ it perfect" way. 

When he pulls away from Lance— or better yet, Lance's  _ teeth—  _ the boy is already laughing, but he can tell it's not at him. Sure, it's  _ because  _ of him, but then again, wouldn't you laugh if the first time your crush kissed you, they made your goddamn teeth vibrate? 

"What's so funny?" 

"I'm a  _ sap _ ," Lance laughs, "a giant  _ sap _ . I've been thinking about this for the longest time and it didn't go how I thought it would  _ at all. _ Christ, my teeth hurt." 

"Err… sorry?" Keith offers. "I really wasn't planning on hurting your teeth." 

Lance shakes his head and kisses him again. And again, and again, and again. And Keith, as best as he can, kisses him back. And when Lance asks him if he would've kissed him back any other time— specifically, back during that sunset on top of the lions when he was covered in damn buckets— Keith tells him no. He wouldn't have. 

Because otherwise they never would've had this wonderful  _ bonding moment.  _

Lance nearly pushes him off of the roof for that one. "Fuck off, Kogane." 

**Author's Note:**

> Lmao I cannot write anything consistently to save my life  
But if you wanna chatter at me I'm on tumblr @Papermachelatte and Twitter @CaffeineFelines but. I'm less active on Twitter. It's not chaotic enough for me 🤷🏾♀️ 
> 
> Anyways I hope you enjoyed it, peace loves. ♡


End file.
